Thanks for the share :) He’s pretty excited about how many people have watched him... to him, a thousand might as well be a million. It’s still a big number. I just wish our government felt the same about figures.

My son has decorum. He does, in fact, use “Yes, Ma’am” and “Yes, Sir.” He also knows how to spell “guess” and knows the difference between “raising” and “rising.” You have the right to say what you think, albeit badly, and I have the right to raise my child to respectfully question when those in authority ask him to do something that they themselves are unwilling to do.

Tip O’Neill once said that “all politics is local.” You can’t get much more local than the breakfast table. David reacted on his scale the same way that I was reacting when I first attended a Tea Party. This was his outlet. My contribution to the project was to point out the hypocrisy of an administration that asks my son to stop eating a breakfast food for health reasons when those making the demands are unwilling to stop smoking or eating short ribs.

He’s definitely no automaton. He’s actually been to every Tea Party ever held in our area, since February 2009, and he loves to go. He actually suggested holding a Tea Party for Cap’n Crunch, but I told him it would be easier to just write his letter :D

There’s no “using” going on here. He was very upset on the way home from school yesterday—and his teacher loves him—about the Cap’n Crunch story. He asked me how he could stop the government from taking his cereal away. He suggested writing a letter. I simply made it readable for more people.

I don’t catch the disrespect. All I see are adults being called on their double standard. But thanks for the polite message, all the same ;)

My wife used to teach at a government school (she now works at the same private school I do), and she used to bring home stories about how much food was wasted/thrown away. Now that the food is going to be “healthier,” I wonder how much more will be wasted, all on the taxpayer’s dime.

Thanks :D We’re hoping it gets a few views and helps to add our two cents to the idea that government decisions and policies do affect regular people. David is a believer in personal freedom, to be sure.

Nice... :D A man, presumably there with the unions, approached several of us in the crowd, trying to bait us into discussions about teachers’ unions and Georgia’s HOPE scholarship. He had flustered several of the women around me to the point they refused to talk to him. He then looked at me and started in. I told him he was picking a fight with the wrong man. He gave me a quizzical look, so I said I was a private school teacher who thinks the government school system is going to hell in a handbasket because of the unions, the overall purpose of the public school movement, and because of the insistence on raising a child’s self-esteem, thereby denying the students their God-given right to fail. He stammered a bit, then ran away. It was a nice moment for me :)

Thanks :) I should have rephrased it to make it more clear, and, in fact, have done so on the actual article on my site. The last thing I want to do is mislead.

I was tempted, by the way, to do an excerpt. But I felt it was more important to get the word out than to generate hits for my modest little blog. I feel pretty good about what I was trying to say, as several commentators last night and today, including Glenn Beck on his radio program, have echoed my initial sentiments.

Thank you for the kind words. I’d love to see it get national exposure to the degree that I’d get to defend the premise on a news program. I told my wife that, if it ever happened, I would really tweak the MSM talking heads and quote Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.” :)

The point is that people, particularly the Media and those close to the investigation, need to quit pointing fingers at their political foes and deal with the reality of the situation. Their attempt to paint the real “culprit” of this tragedy will only serve to exacerbate the problem they’re allegedly trying to fix.

I understand the 17th Amendment. I teach the constitutional implications of that addition to an AP Government class and two classes of U.S. History. State legislatures chose senators before the 17th Amendment (Section. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof [Modified by Amendment XVII], for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.).

By “elected,” I did not mean to say he was POPULARLY elected. I apologize for the confusion. Next time I make a post, I’ll be sure to explain more thoroughly and make the appropriate citations. We are agreed, however, on the value of the so-called “progressive” amendments.

After reading more stories coming out about the attack on free speech, I have updated this story on the web site. Now the Internet is being blamed. I’m not sure how the Internet explains any of the other assassins or attempted assassins in American history... what did killers do before the Internet?

When he spoke to my students last week, one of them asked him why he felt he was qualified to be president. His answer was great... he listed his experiences as a CEO and leader of large corporations, and then he turned the question around and asked the students how well being a governor or a senator had prepared the last few presidents. “How’d that work out for us?” I believe were his exact words. I think this election cycle will be a bit different than ones in the past—or at least that’s my hope. I have no doubts that, if elected, he would choose the best possible advisors to work on the general agenda, just as Reagan did.

Thanks for sharing :) To anyone questioning the Corrine Brown clip at the end, I have to explain... my school is in Georgia, and the kids aren’t too fond of the Gators for the most part. So that and the fact that she, like many others in Congress, is making a mockery of our House led me to include that clip.

I think that’s a bit harsh, given the circumstances with which Lincoln was dealt. Many of the powers he assumed were done so because of insurrection. You can make a case that he played a game of duplicity in regards to his views on the Confederacy—one moment he treated them like a foreign combatant, the next like a band of rebels.

In winning, however, a lot of his transgressions were essentially erased by public opinion in the North, where the history was written. Had Lincoln failed and the war effort collapsed, as it nearly did on several occasions in the North, he would necessarily be viewed differently.

To call Lincoln a Marxist is a bit anachronistic, however, as Marx’s signature work Das Kapital wasn’t published until 1876, though his ideas were circulating throughout Europe.

It’s a bit closer now... Obviously, in a subjective poll, you’ll get people’s opinions based on their experience and not necessarily based on their understanding of the big picture. I think both Washington and Reagan were great in their time periods. The difference was the Washington was absolutely vital to future generations. The jury is still out, historically speaking, on Reagan’s importance to future generations.

Washington won a unanimous popular vote. Unanimous. All 69 electors then cast a vote for Washington (in the formal election), and then their other votes were cast for their choice for VP. John Adams, of course, won that second-place vote. There was no degree of unpopularity with Washington.

The MSM described the Community Organizer as “popular” because he had big crowds. No one opposed Washington for president. In fact, the office was given more powers than many of the delegates wished simply because all the delegates knew Washington would be the first president. Read Brookheiser’s book, Founding Father, if you’d like to learn more about why Washington was unopposed.

Coolidge was really one of the forgotten presidents until recently. I believe Glenn Beck has praised Coolidge on several occasions, and the Bill Bennett American history textbook (America: The Last Best Hope, which I recommend everyone interested in U.S. history read) treats Coolidge very well.

My favorite Coolidge anecdote concerns his refusal to speak unnecessarily. When a woman approached him at a dinner, she informed the president, “I made a bet with my friends that I could get you to say more than two words.” Coolidge’s reply? “You lose.”

Feel free to vote for Polk in the “Other” section. I didn’t want to list every president, and I knew going in that there would be some favorites left out. Someone wrote in Andrew Johnson, I’m assuming because he fought against the Radical Republicans’ play to strengthen the federal government. I don’t agree with him being the greatest, but I allowed a write-in for those who supported presidents not on the list.

After a brief hiatus for basketball camp, Vacation Bible School, and an AP Government and Politics workshop, I have returned to the Alamo. My first post after this short break comes from a video sent to me by one of my students. Amazing stuff.